FORMS OF MARKETING
Pros Cons
Word of mouth/referrals Free
Personal (trust issue)
Reach small numbers Limited info conveyed
Business cards Cheap Reach small numbers
Limited info conveyed Paid print ads:
YP, other ads
Reach many people Cost
Can’t be changed Car lettering Relatively inexpensive
Fairly good exposure
Limited info
Can’t be changed easily
Web Huge exposure
Can be changed quickly Can contain a lot of info Ongoing cost is low
Hard to find
Requires either start up hired help or start up software/time
Marketing is circular. Each type reinforces the other.
COSTS
Domain registration $0 to $12/yr Web hosting account $5-10/mo
Web design contracted out Depends on what and how much info you want on the site and who you hire. A respectable site of 5-10 pages can be made for about $200.
Web design do-it-yourself You may need to purchase software (several
hundred dollars); you will invest a lot of time learning how to use your software or online web building program, and may not be satisfied with the results. Consider cost of your time and the results achieved. Time vs benefit.
DO IT YOURSELF VS HIRING A PRO
The main reason people don’t hire someone to design their website is cost. However, the cost in dollars should be weighed against your cost in time and money if you do it yourself. You also need to take into consideration how effective your DIY site will be. Drawbacks to making your own web site:
• Need to buy software (usually)
• Need to get training (free or paid)
• Learning curve, time investment
• Your first web sites may or may not be better than no web site at all
• Takes a lot of time and experience to get good AND fast
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
“A” web site vs a “Good” web site
From the book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug How we really use the Web
When we’re creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading our finely crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click.
What they actually do most of the time (if we’re lucky) is glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page that they don’t even look at.
Many websites, even those designed by professionals, get in the way of the user. Websites are different from print media. Info must be concise or users will flee.
PURPOSE OF WEB SITE
If you cannot articulate the purpose of your site, you are not ready to have a web site. From webpagesthatsuck.com:
Write these two sentences where you can see them as you're working: 1. The only reason my web site exists is to solve my customers' problems. 2. What problems does the page I'm looking at solve?
Nobody cares about you or your site.
Really. What visitors care about is solving their problems. Now. Most people visit a web site to solve one or more of these four problems:
1. They want/need information
2. They want/need to make a purchase / donation. 3. They want/need to be entertained.
4. They want/need to be part of a community.
CONTENT
How to decide what you will put on your web site:
Think of the questions you answer over and over for customers, and think of the questions you WISH they would ask.
If you were looking for these services, what would you want to see on a web site?
What do YOU think people need to know? What distinguishes you from your competitors?
Extras: PDF docs? Online forms to fill out? Audio or video?
Writing for the web is a special skill and can make the difference between an OK website and a highly effective website. I'm a "good writer" and a great editor, but I do
DESIGN AND LAYOUT
What will the site look like?Use a piece of paper turned sideways to emulate the monitor, make a sketch of the general page layout. Make copies to use for other pages if it helps you visualize the site.
Structure: What will main navigation links be? “Sub” navigation?
Usability: Orient the user on every page, easy navigation.Make a simple diagram of “areas” of the site, if you have enough pages to warrant it
Browser issues: HTML is not interpreted consistently across browsers. Your site will not look exactly the same in all browsers, but it should look good in all
browsers.
Accessible for visually and physically impaired? Separate content from design.
GRAPHICS
Web is a graphic medium … but …
Graphics are not the focus of the site - information is. Incorporate existing logos and color schemes into your site.
NEVER use graphics for “words” unless you have a work around for search engines and visually impaired people. Include ALT tags for all graphics. Consider hiring a professional graphic artist to design the main graphics. Prepping graphics for the web:
Resize to pixel height and width you want the graphic to be (when viewed at 100% in your graphics software)
Reduce “quality” until graphic is 40KB or less
NEVER put the graphic into the web page and then resize (like you would in Word) JPG for photos/gradations, GIF for solid colors
WEB DESIGN AND MAINTENANCE SOFTWARE OPTIONS
Website Design Options: HTML Text Editing software – if one character is typed in wrong, whole page may be scrambled – NEVER recommended!
Dreamweaver/Fireworks (from Adobe) – for professional web designers; steep learning curve, high price
Online “do-it-yourself” site building tools (although free, these are not as user friendly as people expect them to be)
Website Maintenance Options:
Pay the designer to maintain site s/he built or maintain it yourself if you built it Content Management Systems (CMS):
MARKETING A WEB SITE
How will people find your site? You must market your site!
TRADITIONAL MARKETING
Put web address on EVERYTHING: cards, handouts, all ads, Yellow Pages listing Mention on the phone
List with professional organizations Lettering on vehicle
Donating products or services to fund raising auctions
ONLINE MARKETING
Links from other appropriate sites (not just any site) Pay-per-click advertising
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
“I want my site to rank high in the search engines!” What does this really mean?Before explaining how to optimize a site for search engines, let me state that I do not believe anyone should depend on search engines to drive traffic to a site. I believe most of your web traffic will probably come from other marketing efforts: putting your web address on all your print media (business cards and any other advertising), word of mouth, email marketing of your web address (including putting it in the "sig line" of all your outgoing emails), etc. Just as with a brick and mortar store front you cannot depend on walk-by traffic, with a website you cannot depend on most of your traffic coming from search engines. You must market your website through other traditional means.
That said, of course I optimize every site I do for the best Google ranking possible. But much of the work of SEO must be done in collaboration with the site owner or a
Google and most other search engines weigh the following in ranking a site:
• "Words” in domain name (for instance, the words "piano tuner" appear in rvpianotuner.com)
• Words in the title tag (this is an html tag that contains words that appear at the top of the browser window in the title bar)
• Words in the description meta tag (hidden from the web user's view, but seen by search engines; should be limited to about 150 characters)
• Words in content (text) on page
• Links from other appropriate sites
Over time, make a list of "keywords" - words that you think people would use to find a site like yours. Then incorporate as many of the most important words into as many of the first four items above as possible. This is the most important part of search engine optimization.
It takes 2 to 8 weeks after the above steps have been done for search engines
to"spider" a site and index or re-index it. Do not check Google two day after you make those changes and expect to see a change in your ranking! Even after the site is spidered, it can take 3 to 6 months to move up in the rankings.
If basic search engine optimization does not get the result you want, even after you "tweak" the things in the list above, the next step is pay-per-click web advertising, and you will have to determine if the benefit will outweigh the cost.
RESOURCES
Domain registration:www.GoDaddy.com [there are hundreds of domain registration sites, this is just one] Web hosting:
www.hostmonster.com [there are many excellent web hosting services, this is just one] Professional web design software:
Dreamweaver and Fireworks: www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver Do-It-Yourself web design interface:
Various tools are available free at all good web hosting services Design issues:
www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-mistakes-in-web-design-1995-2015.html www.w3c.org (World Wide Web Consortium)
Search engine optimization:
www.searchenginewatch.com/3632183 Separate content from design – examples: www.csszengarden.com
Training/tutorials:
Online or DVD training in all web-related programs (and others): www.lynda.com
www.vtc.com
Dreamweaver has its own built-in tutorial.
For help on any aspect of web design, just type the topic you need help on into the Google search box. Example: CSS tutorial
Web Usability:
Gerry McGovern, author of Killer Web Content www.gerrymcgovern.com
Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think www.sensible.com
Jakob Nielsen, “the guru of web page usability” www.useit.com/alertbox
